Continuing the Getting Started with HDInsight series, let us get started with some hands-on. Now that we have gained sufficient ground in the Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, in Part 3, we will take a look at the following aspects of HDInsight and work through a series of steps to create a cluster.

Creating an HDInsight Cluster with the Azure Management Portal

Creating an HDInsight Cluster with Windows Azure PowerShell

In these two different approaches, we will create an Azure Storage Account followed by an HDInsight cluster. Please note the following pre-requisites before getting started with this article:

To be able to create an Azure HDInsight Cluster, we need an active Windows Azure Subscription. If you do not have one, you can sign up for a free trial here: Windows Azure – Free one-month trial.